


Hello Neighbour

by Dormammu12



Category: Original Work
Genre: Dysfunctional Family, F/M, Family Drama, Mental Health Issues, Music, Neighbors, Sexual Content, Weight Gain, Weight Issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-16 05:13:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28950975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dormammu12/pseuds/Dormammu12
Summary: Ned's neighbour keeps to himself. All he knows about her is that she orders a truly heroic amount of takeout.And then she falls down.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 11





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I am Dormammu12 on DeviantArt. My online presence may be viewed in its totality here: linktr . ee / dormammu12
> 
> I also take commissions. Contact me on dA for more.

As he switched off his car engine, Ned leaned back in his seat, stretching, and winced as his spine popped. Sighing, he unbuckled his seatbelt and stepped out into the underground car park. It was almost midnight, and he’d almost fallen asleep at the studio. If his mother hadn’t woken him up with a phone call, he’d probably have spent the night there. It wouldn’t have been the first time.

“One more night of this,” he muttered, “and my back is going to give up on me soon.” Rubbing his eyes, he stepped into the elevator and blinked blearily at the numbers on the panel before belatedly remembering that he was supposed to press a button.

Instead of going straight up to his apartment, though, the lift stopped at the ground floor, and Ned stared as a scrawny, redheaded teenager ducked into the elevator. He was carrying two paper bags, both of which were filled to the brim with greasy food, and Ned’s stomach twinged painfully as the smell reached his nose. The delivery boy glanced at the panel, nodded to himself, and turned to face the doors as they slid shut.  He must be going to the same floor as me .

Ned was right. As he slipped out of the lift and into his own apartment, cursing as he fumbled with his keys, he heard the delivery boy knock smartly on his neighbour’s wooden door. “Delivery for Addy!”

Addy, eh? Weird name.

Ned didn’t know much about his neighbour, save that she was the only other person that lived on this floor, and that she ordered a truly heroic amount of takeout. This was not to say that he was a nosy person, to be sure; in fact, Ned prided himself on minding his own business. Still, he couldn’t help but be a bit curious about the lady who lived next door. She was so private that Ned hadn’t even known that she was female until a few months back.

“Addy,” he muttered, safe in the knowledge that it was just him in his apartment, talking to himself, and kicked off his shoes. “Adeline? Is that her name? I could have misheard; perhaps her name is Annie. Anna? Anne? What sort of diminutive is Addy, anyway?” He didn’t bother to switch on the lights; instead, he stumbled past his couch, navigating through his living room by touch, and eventually had to rely on his phone’s torchlight to make his way to his bedroom.

Once he’d reached his bedroom, Ned flopped, face-first, down onto his own bed. He was out before he hit the mattress.

\-----

It was about nine in the morning when Ned finally gathered up the strength to roll out of bed.

Groaning, he heaved himself upright and shuffled into his bathroom, eyes closed. He hadn’t bothered to change out of his jeans and T-shirt, and everything felt sticky and uncomfortable. Instead of brushing his teeth first, he opted to take a shower, and sighed gustily as the warm water cascaded over his skin.  I really shouldn’t stay up so late next time , he thought.  I know I keep saying it, but I really shouldn’t .

As he emerged from his shower cubicle, a white towel wrapped around his waist, Ned squinted at himself in the mirror and bared his teeth, poking and prodding at his gums.  Thank God for the shower , he thought.  I feel much more human now.  Switching on the tap, he splashed some water on his face and opened his bottle of mouthwash.

That was when he heard the  thud .

Ned didn’t immediately drop whatever he was doing and investigate the noise, of course. He had a routine to follow, after all, and whatever was making that noise could wait until he was done. Methodically, he flossed, brushed his teeth, rinsed his face and applied a minor quantity of product to any stray bits of acne. (He’d had a persistent issue with acne since his teens.)

Then, and only then, did he exit his bathroom and search for the source of the noise.

The  thud s had become more frequent, and as Ned followed his ears, he realized that they were originating from outside his apartment. He squinted through his peephole, saw nothing, and decided to toss on some proper clothes before venturing outdoors. After pulling on a T-shirt and a pair of cargo pants, he slipped into his moccasins and opened his door, only to come face-to-face with… something.

“Uh,” he said, weakly. “Why…”

There were five people standing outside his neighbour’s apartment. Two of them were EMTs, two of them were police officers, and the last guy was his complex’s security guard, Joe. The police officers were hammering at his neighbour’s door with a battering ram; as it hit the wood, it groaned sickeningly, and Ned cringed. Instead of returning to his apartment, though, he hurried over to Joe, determined to figure out what was going on. “Hey, man, what’s the matter?”

Joe shrugged. “I dunno. Yer neighbour called the ambulance. Said she’d fallen down and couldn’t get up. She lives alone, so they brought a couple cops and a battering ram.”

Ned knew that he should have asked after his neighbour, but he was more concerned with himself. “Is it going to damage my apartment?”

“Dunno,” Joe sniffed, adjusting his jacket, and dabbed at his nose with his handkerchief. “This hasn’t exactly happened before, to tell you the truth.”

Ned was about to ask another question, but his train of thought was derailed by the nauseating sound of wood splintering, and he turned his head just in time to see his neighbour’s door be knocked off its hinges. “Please stay clear,” ordered one of the EMTs, her voice clipped and precise, and Ned stepped backwards instinctively, driven back by her air of authority. He couldn’t see much of his neighbour’s apartment, but from what little he  could  see, she’d drawn the curtains, and the whole place was not well-illuminated at all. And the stench, Jesus, the  stench .

“So,” he began, having gotten his train of thought back on track, “do you know who my neighbour is?”

“Name on the books is Abigail Lee. Apart from that, I dunno. Never seen her leave the building before.”

Oh, so I misheard.  “She sure orders a lot of food,” Ned observed. “Has anyone ever visited?” As the words left his lips, his ears picked up a faint keening emanating from Abigail Lee’s apartment.

Joe opened his mouth, but was cut off by one of the police officers, who had emerged from Abigail Lee’s apartment with a pained expression on his face. “You have a cargo lift, right?”

“Of course, of course.” Shooting him an apologetic glance, Joe directed the policeman to the lift, leaving Ned to the tender mercies of said policeman’s colleague, who had just exited the apartment unit and was now approaching him.

“Name?”

“Uh, Edward Seifert.” Ned blinked owlishly at her. “Am I in trouble?”

“No, don’t worry. We just need to record your details in the event of… unforeseen circumstances…”

It was then that the EMTs emerged from Abigail Lee’s apartment. One of them was in front, while the other one was behind, and they were both operating a bariatric stretcher. And on top of the bariatric stretcher…

Ned had always been aware, on some level, that his neighbour was not a skinny person. After all, she ordered a great deal of food on a regular basis; how could she have been skinny? The sight of her, though, was considerably more jarring, mostly because there was so  much of her. As they rolled her out, her head lolling to one side, groaning weakly, Ned stared, all thoughts of decorum and good manners having completely gone out the window.

Abigail Lee had clearly once been a fairly pretty girl. Her skin was clear, if slightly greasy, and was covered in a faint sheen of sweat. Her eyes, which were half-closed, were large and dark. Her lips - not so thin as to be considered severe, not so thick as to be considered crass - were half-obscured by various sauces, and there was a dollop of butter at the corner of her mouth. Her hair had clearly not been cut in some time, and formed a lank, limp waterfall that her head was currently resting against. She had more than a few chins, of course, but considering the rest of her, Ned was surprised that her face had remained so normal-looking, and he could see very clearly which of her features had been submerged in fat and which had survived the onslaught of adipose tissue.

The rest of Abigail Lee’s body was immense, and dominated entirely by her belly, which extended from her skimpy, ill-fitting bra all the way down to her thighs. Ned referred to it, in the privacy of his mind, as a bra, but it had clearly once been a T-shirt, although it had been so utterly ruined by sweat, grease and various other condiments that it barely deserved to be called an item of clothing anymore. She wasn’t wearing a bra underneath, either, and her breasts had flopped down to either side of her stomach, barely held in check by her bra/T-shirt.

Her stomach dwarfed her chubby arms, her tree-trunk thighs and her swollen calves; it was the axis around which her entire body revolved. Her legs had curved around it, and her arms rested, nerveless, atop its vast, yawning expanse. Its pale, puffy surface was criss-crossed with stretch marks, both old and new, and as Ned pulled back to take in her entire bloated form, it seemed to him as though she had grown very fat in a very short amount of time.

Her appearance, in and of itself, was startling enough to strike Ned completely dumb, but it was her smell that shook him out of his fugue. Various crumbs and leavings were scattered across her body, and the diverse array of condiments that adorned her T-shirt/bra also adorned her flesh, scattered across her skin like a Jackson Pollock painting. As the two EMTs huffed and puffed, heaving her along, Ned glimpsed one of her pasty, pitted buttocks and blanched at the hint of something brownish.

The bariatric stretcher was bearing up remarkably well under the strain, and Ned continued to gawk as it trundled into the cargo lift. The two cops remained behind, though, packing up their battering ram, and Ned didn’t realize that they were speaking to him until one of them nudged him lightly.

“Mr Seifert?”

“Uh, yeah?”

“The situation’s handled. You can go back in now.”

“Oh, okay.” Ned waved a hand vaguely at what had once been Abigail Lee’s door. “Are you, uh, going to…”

“There are security cameras. There shouldn’t be any burglaries, not as long as your security guards are doing their job.”

“Which hospital -”

“Hill Central,” the cop interrupted, following his partner into the lift. “And, if you have anything else to add, I suggest you ask Ms Lee herself. Our job here is done.” The lift doors slid shut behind him, and Ned was left staring at his own blurry reflection.

Slowly, carefully, dreamily, he turned around, returned to his apartment and made himself a sandwich.

As he ate, he thought.

Well, it isn’t every day that you see your neighbour carried out on a stretcher.

It was the first time he’d ever seen his neighbour, as a matter of fact.

Contemplatively, Ned finished off his sandwich and folded his arms. He had thought himself curious before, but this…  this was utterly absorbing. How had she, his neighbour, Abigail Lee, gotten to this point? How had this happened? He wanted to know everything, and Ned found that it was all that he could think about.

What can I do?

He could call up the man who’d sold him his apartment, which was exactly what he proceeded to do. It wasn't a very enlightening conversation, though, and the man who’d sold him his apartment confessed that he’d never been particularly curious about his neighbour; all he’d known was that her name was Abigail, and that she ordered an awful lot of food.

So, that was that.

There  was  another thing he could do, though: snoop around in Abigail Lee’s apartment. Then again, Ned knew that all the lift lobbies were under constant surveillance, and given today’s incident, Joe would definitely be watching his lobby, in particular, like a hawk. So, that was out.

No, perhaps it would be best if he visited Abigail Lee at the hospital - out of concern, of course, and certainly not out of curiosity.  Yes , Ned thought,  that would be for the best. I should try to take my mind off of it, though; don’t I have other things to do? Best to get some work done before dropping by in the afternoon .

\-----

After one hour spent bashing his head against the metaphorical wall, Ned was forced to concede that no, he would not be able to take his mind off of Abigail Lee, not until he figured out what was going on and resolved his strange fascination (obsession?) with her.

“Going off so soon, Ned?” Chris called, spinning around in his chair. “You usually stay ‘till lunch.” Chris worked at the company at which Ned was employed; it was a mid-sized music label, but it had a few hits under its belt, and they were comfortable. “Something bothering you?”

“Yeah,” Ned grunted, slipping into Chris’ office and sitting down opposite him. “My neighbour went to hospital today.”

“Oh, shit.” Chris’ eyes widened. “Is he okay?”

“Dunno,” Ned shrugged, wary of elaborating further. “Maybe I’ll go for a walk, clear my mind a little, and then come back to screw around.”

“Aw, come on,” Chris retorted, “don’t sell yourself short, man! You don’t screw around.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Ned chuckled, rising to his feet and ambling out. “See you later, yeah?”

“Later.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am Dormammu12 on DeviantArt. My online presence may be viewed in its totality here: linktr . ee / dormammu12
> 
> I also take commissions. Contact me on dA for more.

About half an hour later, Ned arrived at Hill Central. The receptionist directed him to a ward on the third floor, and as he stepped into the lift, a tall, young lady slipped in after him. Ned snuck a few glances at her as they headed up. There was something familiar about her, though he couldn’t tell what, exactly, it was. She was definitely pretty, though, and Ned wondered if she was a model -

Huh.

“Hi,” he began, tentatively, as they stepped out onto the third floor, “I know this may be a little weird, but are you here to visit Abigail?”

The woman spun around to look at him, eyes wide with surprise, and pursed her lips for a moment. “Yes,” she said, then, guardedly, her voice clear, crisp and slightly accented. “Why?”

“Oh, I see,” Ned answered, quite politely, and stuck out his hand. “Ned Seifert. I’m Abigail’s neighbour.”

“Charmed,” said the other woman, not sounding charmed at all, and shook his hand firmly. She was doing a poor job of masking her reluctance. “Emily. I’m her sister.”

“I was just dropping by to see how she was,” Ned hedged. “Y’know, showing concern, and all that. It’s the right thing to do.”

Emily Lee didn’t reply, preferring instead to let the silence drag on. Ned could tell that she was a little suspicious of him, which was fair. As they approached Abigail Lee’s ward, though, she slowed down noticeably, and Ned seized the opportunity to restart the conversation. “So, uh,” he began, as casually as he dared, “before you go in to see Abigail, I feel like you might want to know something…”

Emily Lee turned to look at him again, squinting slightly. “Yes?”

“Well, when was the last time you saw her in person?”

A pause. Then: “… a while back.”

Ned cleared his throat. “She may have… gained a little weight.”

“Yeah,” Emily Lee sneered, “I’m sure. I’ll be the judge of that, thank you very much.” Sweeping past Ned, she pushed into the ward. Ned followed her in.

Emily Lee had come to a screeching halt at the sight of her sister on an immense hospital bed, surrounded by beeping machines, and Ned had to inch out from behind her to take in the spectacle. The last time he’d seen Abigail Lee, he’d only been able to catch a glimpse; no more than thirty seconds, if that. Here, though, he was able to just… stand there, and take it all in.

It’s not arousal, he argued, talking to himself again. I’m not aroused by her. It’s just… look at what she’s done to herself. Look at what she’s become. He glanced at Emily Lee, who was probably slightly taller than him, and who was currently staring, open-mouthed, at her blob of a sister. She could’ve looked like her sister, once upon a time… and what is she now? A mountain. A natural formation.

Abigail Lee had been covered up admirably by her hospital gown. It was likely that her T-shirt-turned-bra had been removed, and whatever she’d been wearing down there… well, Ned didn’t want to speculate. The fluorescent lights shining overhead cast her skin in an unhealthy-looking pallor, but at least her face - not to mention the rest of her - had been cleaned adequately. Her eyes were closed, and her hands lay on either side of her, dwarfed, as before, by the mountain of her gut, which was shielded from view by the sheets. It resembled an enormous white lump, and as Ned stared, he could have sworn that he heard a slight gurgling.

Softly, he cleared his throat, and masked his mirth as Emily Lee jerked in surprise. “I was told by the security guard that she’d fallen down in her apartment,” he explained. “She’d been unable to get up. They had to carry her out on a… I think the term is bariatric stretcher.”

There was a pause.

“The cops had to use a battering ram to enter her apartment, since she was the only one in there,” he added, helpfully.

Emily Lee took in a deep, shuddering breath, blinking rapidly, and pivoted on her heel. Ned followed her out into the corridor, where she proceeded to sit down on one of the plastic seats and bury her face in her hands. Ned, who was not well-versed in such things, hung around awkwardly, and eventually sat down beside her. The silence stretched.

Eventually, Emily Lee turned away, discreetly dabbed at her eyes, and cleared her throat. “Sorry,” she apologized, as though to fill the silence. “I’m just… it was a bit shocking to see.”

“Ah,” Ned said, attempting to sound sympathetic and non-judging.

“It’ll be a while before the rest of them get here,” she continued, swallowing, sounding as though she was talking to herself instead of to him. “So, I’m going to go get a coffee.”

Although he wasn’t explicitly invited, she certainly hadn’t asked him to go away, and so Ned found himself nursing a black coffee as Abigail Lee’s sister sat opposite him, slurping down a latte and tapping at her phone. “It’s done,” she announced, after a few minutes, and set her phone face-down on the table, running her hands through her hair. “They know.”

“Who else are you expecting?”

“My brother and my parents.” Emily Lee paused, eyes searching his face, and Ned attempted to inject a hefty dollop of guilelessness into his expression. “Oh, what the heck. You’ve already seen her.”

Ned waited.

“She used to be a… performer.”

“Ah,” Ned said. “Well, I’ve never heard of her.”

Emily Lee snorted abruptly, and Ned performed a quick mental fist-pump. He’d clearly said the right thing. “Yeah, that’s probably for the best,” she muttered. She didn’t seem to want to elaborate, though, and Ned decided not to press her on the subject. He did manage to get her number, though, which was a hell of a score.

Later, they gravitated back to the waiting area, just outside Abigail Lee’s ward, and Ned learnt a little more about Emily in the interim. Although he’d assumed that she was a model, she was actually a lawyer, and had studied at Oxford. Her mother was also a lawyer, while her father was a tech entrepreneur (“not a billionaire, of course, but not, like, poor”) who’d made his fortune at the height of the dotcom boom. Her brother, Ken (short for Kenneth), was a doctor, and as he came running up to them, the sight of Ned hovering beside his sister brought a quizzical, slightly suspicious look to his face.

“Who’s this?”

“Oh, Ken, thank goodness you’re here,” Emily cried, and threw her arms around him.

Ken raised an eyebrow as he wriggled out of his sister’s embrace. “Em, is this Luthor?”

(Luthor was Emily’s boyfriend. Ned could not deny that he’d been a bit disappointed to hear that she was attached, but such was life.)

“Luthor? Oh, no.” Emily pulled away, patting her brother awkwardly on the back, and turned to Ned. “Ned, this is Ken. Ken, this is Abby’s neighbour. He, um, dropped by. To show some concern.”

“I was under the impression that Abby had made a lot of friends in this city,” drawled Ken, but shook Ned’s hand firmly. "Pleased to meet you."

“Yes, well…” Emily smiled humorlessly. “I think you’ll find, Ken, that Abby’s been lying to us about a lot of things.”

“Oh, really?” Ken pressed his lips together. “Elaborate.”

Emily inhaled deeply. “I think it’s best if you see for yourself.” She turned to Ned again. “Ned, would you mind bringing my brother to see Abby? I’ll -” and here she paused to think of an excuse, “- wait for my parents. Outside.”

Ned nodded, wordlessly, and held the door for Ken.

Instead of freezing up like his sister had, Kenneth Lee swore violently, clenched his fists so hard that his knuckles went white, and stormed up to get a closer look at his sister’s vitals. Ned watched as he looked over the various documentation and figures, his face growing tighter and tighter, before groaning loudly and leaving the room.

“Fuck,” he said, quite simply, eliciting a scandalized gasp from Emily. “Thanks, Ned. I appreciate the help. Emily, next time, just tell me.”

“I sure hope there isn’t a next time,” Emily retorted. “What does it all mean, Ken?”

“What does it all mean?” Ken repeated, bleakly. “Well, it means that, if she doesn’t change her lifestyle, our sister is going to die before she hits fifty.” A pause. “Or forty. Depends on how you look at it.”

“Ken,” Emily hissed, “elaborate.”

Ken shrugged helplessly. “I’m not sure what you want me to say,” he snapped. “Where should I begin? Her blood glucose levels? Her skyrocketing cholesterol? Her ridiculous blood pressure? Her fatty liver? The stress that her entire musculoskeletal system is under?” He paused for breath, face splotchy with agitation. “You used to talk to her every day. You should have reached out.”

“Oh, fuck you,” Emily spat. “You’re the one who said he was going to keep tabs on her. Fat lot of good that did.”

“She said she was doing fine! I have a life, you know -”

Ned cleared his throat, and the gentle reminder that they were all but arguing in public sufficed to calm both of them down. “So,” he suggested, quietly, “coffee?”

\----

"We need to do something," Ken said.

His words broke the silence that had settled, oppressively, over their little corner of the coffee shop. Ned had led them back to the table which he and Emily had occupied earlier, and they had spent about half an hour immersed in their own thoughts, each nursing a different drink, before Ken had finally gathered up the courage to speak up.

Who’s “we”? Ned thought, suppressing a chuckle. The fact that Ken Lee was including him in the discussion was telling. Well, if you insist…

“We could hold an intervention,” Emily suggested.

“She has a slipped disc,” Ken added. “I suggest that, once she wakes up, we get the surgeon in on the matter and organize a surgery ASAP. It’d fix one of her problems, at least.”

“How about in the long-term?”

Ken shrugged. “Hire a maid. It’s not like she’d be able to overpower a domestic helper.”

“Might want to clean out her apartment too,” Ned began, tentatively, and froze up for a moment as the Lee siblings turned in unison to fix him with a look.

“Her apartment?”

“Well,” Ned hedged, “it was quite dark, from what I could see. And, um, once the door was open, I became aware of a… well… a certain smell.”

The Lee siblings exchanged a glance. Emily sighed. “Sure, what’s one more item on the list?” She whipped out her phone, tapping furiously, and Ned realized with some amusement that she was creating an actual laundry list of items to obtain for her sister. “Healthy food, I suppose. There are services like that here, aren’t there?” That question was directed at Ned.

“Um, yes. I guess.”

“And a regular house visit from a qualified medical practitioner -”

“Hang on,” Ken cut in. “I don’t think that’s necessary. It’d be a little expensive -”

“How could you be talking about cost when our sister’s life is in danger?” Emily snarled.

“She’s not in immediate danger,” Ken snarled back, his face a carbon copy of Emily’s, and Ned was about to try clearing his throat again when Emily’s phone lit up. As he watched, Emily answered the call, the anger on her face melting away, and slipped into an unfamiliar tongue as Ken blinked and rose to his feet.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“Our parents are on the way,” Ken answered, over his shoulder, oblivious to the appreciative glances being shot in his direction by the young barista at the counter. “You might want to… um… make yourself scarce.”

Ned’s curiosity, which was already having a field day, was only piqued further by this pronouncement. What sort of complex family psychodrama had he gotten himself into? His own family had never been particularly strife-ridden, to be sure; his parents had never been disciplinarians, and he and his siblings had never gotten into any serious, relationship-ending conflicts.

Was that why he was so interested in this whole situation? Perhaps, perhaps.

As Emily Lee left, hot on her brother’s heels, Ned leaned back in his chair, finished his coffee, and went to use the bathroom.

\-----

“- not a cent -”

As Ned left the lift and tread, cautiously, in the direction of the ward which Abigail Lee was occupying, the sound of someone speaking very loudly reached his ears. The words were somewhat muffled, but the volume was unmistakable, and as he neared Abigail Lee’s ward, he realized that they were coming from her room. The curtains obscuring her room from the public view were slightly askew, and as Ned peeked through a gap in the cloth, he could see a tableau fit for HBO.

In the centre of the room, dominating the entire scene (in more ways than one), Abigail Lee sat, half-upright, an expression of confusion tinged with pain flickering over her face, her body vast and shapeless, the folds of the blanket just barely hinting at her size. She was fully conscious, now, and her large eyes were filled with tears as she stared up at a tall, middle-aged man who had to be her father. Her father, in turn, was pointing an accusing finger at her, his face twisted with rage and disgust, and his other hand had formed a fist at his side. Beside him, his remarkably well-preserved wife - Abigail Lee’s mother - was looking at her husband, an entreaty on her lips. Ken and Emily were watching, aghast, as he laid into their sister, and as Ned’s eyes alighted on them, Ken tilted his head downwards by a smidge and clenched his jaw.

Mr Lee was still shouting, but he’d switched to some other unintelligible language, and Ned took a few steps backwards so as to not look like he was eavesdropping too obviously. Carefully, he pulled his phone out and started to record the older man’s words. He’d be able to run it through Google Translate later.

It was a while before Abigail Lee’s father finished shouting, but once he caught his breath, Ned switched off his voice recorder and made himself scarce. For the next five to fifteen minutes, he walked around the hospital, glancing at his phone from time to time, and did his best to project the impression of someone who knew where he was going. It wasn’t long before his impatience got the better of him, though, and he soon opened WhatsApp and texted Emily.

Is the coast clear?

She replied five minutes later.

Yes. Pls come over, we have sth to ask u.

Emily, Ken and their mother were waiting for him when he returned to the waiting area; Mr Lee was nowhere to be seen. He approached gingerly; none of the Lees seemed to be in a very good mood at the moment, and, to be frank, he couldn’t blame them. “Hi,” he started. “I’m Ned Seifert -”

“Abigail’s neighbour, yes,” interrupted Mrs Lee. Now that he was standing right in front of her, Ned thought she looked a lot older. “I understand that you’ve met my children.” She had a brisk, brittle quality to her, and Ned decided that it would be best not to speak at all. So, he nodded.

“Now,” Mrs Lee continued, “you’re clearly aware of my daughter’s circumstances. The cat’s out of the bag, so to speak. Can we trust you not to broadcast this affair to all and sundry?”

“Of course.”

As Ned grew more and more nervous, Mrs Lee studied his face for a long moment before nodding once. “Good.” Ken patted the chair beside him, and Ned sat down. “As unfortunate as it is, we do all have our own jobs, and our own commitments. As regards Abigail… well, there’s only so much that we can do to help her. We’ll stay for as long as we can before returning to work, but after that… she’ll need supervision.” Her face hardened momentarily, as though she’d thought of something nasty, but still she continued. “We’ll be hiring someone to clean her apartment and take care of her while she recovers from her surgery, of course, but we’ve judged that she might need some additional human contact other than the three of us and the assistant in question. Someone who’s less… well… someone who’s less familiar with her.”

“Ah,” Ned said.

“You’ll be given the keys to Abigail’s apartment if there’s an emergency.” Emily paused. “And - of course, it’s entirely up to you - if you’re amenable - we’d like to provide you with an alarm. That’s linked to a button that Abigail can push, if she’s in…”

“In trouble.” They want to give her a panic button. Ned nodded. “I’m amenable to it.” These people really hate to show weakness, don’t they?

“Oh, good.” Emily looked relieved. “Thank you, Ned.”

“No problem! Happy to help.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am Dormammu12 on DeviantArt. My online presence may be viewed in its totality here: linktr . ee / dormammu12
> 
> I also take commissions. Contact me on dA for more.

When Ned left the hospital, he had three new contacts in his phone.

The first one was Emily’s. Ken and Mrs Lee had given him their numbers, too, “just in case”, but Ned had no intention of contacting them if he could help it. He’d offered to give them a lift to wherever they were staying, but all three of them had politely refused. Ned guessed that Mr Lee had probably stormed off somewhere to cool off, and the three of them were planning to go and hunt him down… or something.

When he’d peeked through the curtains to get another glimpse of Abigail Lee, he’d only seen a pale, lumpy mass covered in blankets, quivering gently. She was probably crying, and the sight had spurred Ned into beating a hasty retreat. As he guided his car out onto the streets, his phone rang again, and Ned tapped blindly at his dashboard before relaxing as the call connected.

“Hello?”

“Hi, is this Ned?”

“Oh, Emily. Hey.”

He could hear someone shouting in the background. “Sorry for the trouble, but do you have Abigail’s address?”

Ned told her.

“Thanks. Bye!”

She hung up before Ned had a chance to reciprocate.

\-----

Ned had relatively flexible working hours, since his job was merely to tinker around with music whenever he felt like it. Therefore, after he’d gotten himself a quick lunch, he called Chris to tell him that he wouldn’t be coming in later. After that, it was a fifteen-minute drive back to his apartment building.

Joe was sitting at the counter when he popped by to check, and as Ned stepped out of the lift, he glanced over and raised an eyebrow. “You’re back early.”

“Not having a very productive day,” Ned shrugged, folding his arms on the counter and leaning over. He didn’t chat with Joe that often, but he was on decent terms with him, and that alone had probably elevated him over the other homeowners in the complex in the security guard’s eyes. “Say, have you taken a look at Abigail Lee’s apartment?”

Joe narrowed his eyes. “Thinking of trespassing, are we?”

Ned paused, shoulders tense.

“I’m just fuckin’ with you, kid,” Joe chuckled, swatting him on the back, and Ned exhaled noisily, relieved. “Work gets boring sometimes, man. Do you think I just sit here and doze off? I know way more than most people think. You’d be surprised how much cheating goes on here.”

“Is that a yes or a no?”

“Feel free to go and check her apartment out,” Joe sniggered. “If someone comes up to snoop around, though, you’re on your own.”

“Thanks, Joe. I owe you one.”

While he was in the lift, Ned fished his phone out of his pocket and played the recording he’d taken of Mr Lee’s little rant. He listened to it one or two times, straining to hear something vaguely English-sounding, and eventually managed to isolate a single “Abigail”. Well, he thought, fair enough. He’s scolding his daughter, so it makes sense that he’d use her name. As the lift doors opened, he dragged the pointer on his phone back to that timestamp and replayed the clip.

“\- Abigail Lee -”

“\- Abigail Lee Keejung -”

Is that her full name? Ned stared down at his phone, the lift doors sliding shut behind him, and opened Google.

abigail lee keejung

Did you mean:  abigail lee

Did you mean:  lee ki-jung

There were a few hundred thousand results.

We’ll parse that later, Ned thought, nodding to himself jerkily, vibrating with excitement, an odd sensation curling in the pit of his belly, and raised his head to appraise Abigail Lee’s apartment.

Her door still hung ajar, and the interior was as dark as it had been in the morning. Ned squinted into the blackness, switched on his phone’s torchlight, and stepped gingerly over the threshold. He could hear something, still, echoing from within. It sounded like the TV was still on. There was also still something of a smell, though it seemed to have dissipated considerably. Nonetheless, Ned could still smell it, and oh, it was fresh. If he’d been called upon to separate it into its component scents, he’d probably have been able to point out the stench of alcohol, the smell of grease and oil… oh, and sweat. Sweat was a big component. Sweat, and… meat? Condiments. Ketchup. Sugar, carbonated drinks -

Ned nearly tripped, arms pinwheeling, and flailed around for dear life. His hand landed on a nearby cupboard, and he stared down at the offending object. It was a can of beer, and it was empty… and had been for years, most likely. As he stared down at it, an insect crawled out from within, and Ned tossed it away with a disgusted snort.

Fumbling blindly, he managed to flip something that felt like a light switch, and as they burst into life, Ned blanched at the sight.

Clearly, the electrical light fixtures that had been installed when Abigail Lee had first moved in had not been used on a regular basis. They had grown dim, and a thick layer of grime had covered the once-pristine bulbs. As Ned wandered cautiously out of the vestibule and into the apartment proper, he noticed that the kitchen - which contained an island and an array of appliances - seemed to be the cleanest area in the apartment.

That explains the takeout.

The television was still on, which explained the sounds that had been leaking out into the lobby, and Ned reckoned that it must have been the brightest source of light in the entire living room by far. It was blasting at an extremely high volume, playing a sitcom of some sort, and Ned grimaced as he trod over the crumbling rugs to the curtains, which had been drawn.

I should have gotten some disposable gloves or something. Maybe a mask. Earplugs, too.

As the curtains opened, sticky under his bare hands, light streamed in, dispelling the gloom, and Ned stared. Abigail Lee’s apartment wasn’t a pigsty, to be sure, but it definitely wasn’t clean. Not by a long shot.

The dining table, which looked expensive, was just as neglected as the kitchen. The living room’s sectional sofa, however, had clearly been the focal point for most of Abigail Lee’s daily life, and was utterly sodden with all sorts of… strange fluids. Condiments, of course, but also sweat, grease… various stains. There was a crusty, tubular lump of metal (plastic?) that could have been the remote control, but Ned had no intention of taking a closer look. The coffee table, too, which had a glass table-top, was grimy and ill-maintained. Takeout boxes, plastic bags and various drink cans had been strewn all over the couch, the rug beneath, and the coffee table. There was also a very obvious indent in the couch.

Breathing shallowly through his half-open mouth, he made his way further into the interior of the house, and found that there was a path that had been cleared - by the EMTs, most likely. It led from one specific door, and it was from this one specific door that Ned could detect an especially rancid smell. He was starting to pick up little skittering movements in his peripheral vision, because of course her house would have an infestation. It just made sense.

Debris was strewn here and there, and by peering through the intermittent gaps between individual pieces of trash, Ned could tell that the tiles beneath were grimy and unwashed. No effort had been made to categorize them, and empty pizza boxes mingled freely with discarded plastic containers, but the worst-hit locale appeared to be Abigail Lee’s dining table, which seemed to have become her go-to garbage dump.

Did she not want to use the chute? Good grief.

Despite the ever-more obvious threat of typhoid, malaria and various other exotic diseases, Ned pressed on, fumbling down the corridor, and emerged into a bedroom, where he remained for about ten seconds before spinning around and sprinting out of the apartment.

(There was a bed, of course, and a wardrobe in the corner, and a dressing table, but there was also a very obvious stain on the floor, just crossing over into Abigail Lee’s en-suite bathroom, and it was this stain that was the main source of the smell.)

Ned returned to his own apartment, took a long shower, and very deliberately did not think about the hive of disease and infection that was percolating just next door. That night, he performed a thorough search of his entire apartment while armed with two bottles of insect repellent, and resolved to conduct a more rigorous cleaning session the following day.

\-----

It was only when he woke up the next morning that Ned finally felt up to going through the search results for his query from yesterday. There wasn’t much to see, though. There were a ton of people who had roughly the same name as Abigail Lee, ranging from a renowned kickboxer (male) to a hairdresser active in San Francisco (female) to a music producer in New York (whom Ned was fairly sure he’d come across at an industry meetup a few years back). None of the pictures available on Google Images resembled Abigail Lee in the slightest, but -

There was a sound from next door, and Ned looked up, his train of thought derailed. For a few heart-stopping moments, his imagination convinced him that there was an insect scrabbling at the wall, but reason took hold, and Ned rose to his feet and left his apartment.

Two large men were drilling at Abigail’s door, shearing off what remained of the previous one, and as Ned rubbernecked over their broad shoulders, they straightened up, fixed him with an unimpressed stare, and pointedly stood aside. Ned, feeling rather embarrassed, walked past them and into the apartment. It looked much, much cleaner, and as he looked around at the veritable army of uniformed cleaning ladies wiping, sweeping and vacuuming, the reason why was obvious.

Ken Lee was there too, standing by the open fridge, arms akimbo, glowering at nothing in particular. He brightened up noticeably when Ned came into view. “Ned!” he cried, striding across the floor, and grasped Ned’s shoulders with a solid familiarity that seemed somewhat unwarranted. “How good to see you.”

“I live next door,” Ned managed, quite weakly. “You’re cleaning her apartment, I see.”

Ken’s face darkened. “Quite.” He was wearing an expensive-looking coat, and there was a scarf around his neck. As he watched Ken hop from foot to foot, Ned also noticed that he seemed to be doing his level best to avoid touching any piece of furniture in his sister’s apartment. “She’d begged off Skyping with us last year, so we didn’t know how bad things had gotten. Well, now we know.”

“Ah.”

“It’s a cesspit,” Ken spat, rubbing the back of his neck. “Five years of this, you know? Five years.”

“Mind if I ask you a question?”

“Sure. I need something to take my mind off of this.” Ken gestured vaguely at the surroundings. “I drew the short straw, so… yeah. Need to make sure that no one steals anything.”

Ned smiled blandly. “Yeah, so you said that you weren’t in touch with Abigail, right? How did you know that she’d been admitted to hospital? I’m just curious, of course - no need to answer -”

“She asked them to call Em,” Ken explained. “I know, it doesn’t make sense to me either. I’d have expected her to just keep on doing what she was doing, but I guess she realized how low she’d fallen, so… yeah. A cry for help.”

Ned made a small noise of agreement. A few minutes passed.

“God, is that bird shit?”

“Yeah, I think so,” Ken guffawed, tilting his head forwards a little to squint at the balcony. “Wow, right?”

“My balcony is just around the corner.”

“That’s fucked, bro.”

Why is he calling me “bro”?

The silence stretched.

“Anyway,” Ken laughed, clapping Ned on the shoulders again, “I’m sure you’ve got a busy morning ahead of you. Don’t let me hold you back, yeah?”

The dismissal could not have been put across in a more direct manner.

\-----

When Abby woke up, her eyes hurt.

They’d been hurting ever since she’d woken up to her father screaming at her, to be honest, so it didn’t really matter that much to her. The shock from that initial fit had faded, and in its place was the hunger.

The hunger had always been there, perched on both her shoulders, urging her on to ever-greater heights of gluttony, and Abby took comfort in that. The hunger, at least, would never leave her. It would never desert her.

Mmmm… dessert.

After her father had left, Abby had demanded food. None of the nurses would obey her, however, and Abby - driven half-mad by her empty stomach - accused them of acting on her family’s orders. She hadn’t been able to haul herself out of her bed, though, so that left her right where she’d started. So she’d reclined there, fuming and raging intermittently, forcing down the meagre rations that the hospital had deigned to give her, sulking at the injustice of it all, and the days had inched by.

Around a week later, she was still angry (and hungry). Her family (sans her father) had dropped by to speak with her, but Abby hadn’t said a word to them. She was already regretting having given the paramedics Em’s number. In retrospect, she’d been woozy with pain, but what was done was done.

“Oh,” Em remarked, her tone suspiciously light. “You’re awake.”

Abby didn’t look at her, but instead kept her eyes on the ceiling, which was so blindingly white that it hurt to look at. She’d been so used to living in her apartment, with its familiar contours and dim lighting, that the hospital was an alien environment, and she hated hated HATED it. She’d screamed those words at anyone who’d listen to her, but - again - to no avail.

“You’ll be in here for another fortnight,” Em rattled off, absently, and Abby squeezed her eyes shut, blocking out the hateful brightness of her surroundings. The bone-deep hurt that had suffused her tone when she’d last spoke to Abby had leaked away, and in its place was Emily Lee, Esq., brisk, businesslike and utterly devoid of feeling. “After that, we’ll be moving you back to your apartment, where you will be placed on a regimen intended to rehabilitate your physical health and nurse you back into shape. We’ve hired a caretaker, naturally, to handle food preparation and sanitation, and there will be a trainer dropping by once you’ve been judged to have recovered from your surgery. Your caretaker will be weighing you once a week, and we’ll visit whenever we have the time to do so. You’ll also be receiving regular check-ups from a contact of Ken’s.”

Silence fell.

Em cleared her throat, and when she spoke again, all that certainty had leaked away. “I hope you got all that, Abby.” She cleared her throat again. “The caretaker… we conducted a bunch of interviews, on short notice, but this lady has… well, all of her previous clients had sung praises of her, so. Her name is Dorothy Marcos.”

Abby breathed, quietly, evenly, feeling her body churn and settle, rippling and shifting with every breath, and focused on the hunger boiling in the pit of her stomach.

“Your neighbour - Edward Seifert - Ned - he’s also expressed some interest in helping out. He’s a nice chap, and I believe he’s in the music industry too, so you might be able to bond with -”

“No,” Abby hissed, with a vehemence that surprised even herself, and Em shut up.

“If you’re not going to be reasonable, Abby,” she said, cold and calm, “we’ll treat you like the spoilt brat you are.”

As Abby clenched her fists under the sheets, eyes still squeezed shut, her sister stood, icily self-composed, and left the ward.


End file.
